Perfection! A New Choice

"Excavation? Are you serious?"

Thinking about how cultivation required him to spend vast amounts of money, Chen Mo felt that if he truly ran out of money someday, he could have an epiphany with this skill and then go grave robbing. The profits should be pretty good.

Still, for a martial artist to rob graves somehow felt rather undignified.

Well, unless the profits were high enough, he definitely could not do it.

"What even is this nonsense?"

Shaking his head, Chen Mo stopped thinking about such random things.

After washing up and getting dressed, he went to a breakfast shop not far from home, intending to settle breakfast first.

Only after eating two bowls of pork leg noodles, four buns, and two flatbreads did Chen Mo finally feel full.

Whatever else could be said, Divine Strength Realm martial artists truly had astonishing appetites.

Ordinary food was already becoming a little hard to stomach.

But he had no way to obtain Exotic Beast Meat. The Great Tonic Soup sold at the apothecary for three taels per bowl was pretty good. If it came to it, he could only drink more Great Tonic Soup. At least that was more comfortable than eating an entire table of food every meal.

Just thinking about it made his teeth ache. The key was that the efficiency was far too low.

After filling his stomach, Chen Mo wandered through the streets for a while, taking in the sights of Hequ County's Outer City in the early morning. His mood gradually calmed.

He still needed to see more people. Always cooping himself up at home would make him sick from being cooped up.

Only after strolling around for over half an hour did Chen Mo return home. He decided to use today's epiphany opportunity on the Iron Body Technique.

A Perfection Level Iron Body Technique could make a cultivator's body as hard as iron, greatly increasing their defense. To a certain extent, it could even ward off attacks from sharp blades.

This was what Chen Mo currently needed.

So he chose to improve the Iron Body Technique first.

Compared to offensive means, what he wanted more right now was to stay alive.

After several breaths, the epiphany ended. Feeling the negligible changes in his body, a look of understanding flashed through Chen Mo's eyes. Then he glanced at the information on the panel and immediately looked astonished.

"After my aptitude improved, just one epiphany brought the Iron Body Technique straight to Minor Accomplishment. If I do it once more, will it reach Perfect Accomplishment?"

The key was that he did not even need medicinal baths or ointments. That was unbelievably awesome—saving time, effort, and money.

The Minor Accomplishment Iron Body Technique had already granted Chen Mo considerable defense, but he had no intention of slashing himself with a blade. He merely roughly examined the condition of his skin and found it tighter, finer, and tougher than before. He just did not know how much more his defense would increase after reaching Perfect Accomplishment.

Over the following period, Chen Mo tried cultivating the Cleaving Wind Blade and Flying Cloud Steps again, and it felt completely different from before.

If his previous cultivation speed had been like ordinary walking, then his current speed was like a light jog.

Even without epiphanies, Chen Mo felt that he would soon be able to cultivate the Cleaving Wind Blade and Flying Cloud Steps to the Proficient level.

The importance of aptitude had revealed itself.

"I wonder whether improving my aptitude will reduce the number of epiphanies needed for technique advancement?" Chen Mo was rather curious.

Previously, advancing the Health Cultivation Technique into the Turtle Breath Health Cultivation Technique had required ten epiphanies. Now that his aptitude had improved, how many epiphanies would the equally Trash Tier Iron Body Technique need to advance?

Shaking his head and refusing to dwell on questions he could not answer, Chen Mo focused on cultivation.

Gradually, he discovered that he could practice blade techniques and movement techniques at the same time, directly doubling his efficiency.

Just like that, the day swiftly passed. Other than going out to eat, Chen Mo spent all his time cultivating in the courtyard.

His progress was quite noticeable, but it still felt too slow.

The next day, he once again used his epiphany opportunity on the Iron Body Technique, successfully raising the technique to Perfect Accomplishment and proving his earlier guess.

When he activated the Iron Body Technique, the muscles throughout his body became as hard as iron. If ordinary people struck him with ordinary blades, they would not pose much of a threat. But if it were divine weapons or sharp blades, they could definitely break through his defense.

But how could anyone capable of wielding divine weapons and sharp blades be an ordinary person?

Chen Mo was not foolish enough to believe that, with a Perfection Level Iron Body Technique, he could simply stand still and let others hack at him.

With the Iron Body Technique at Perfect Accomplishment, Chen Mo's next epiphany targets would shift to the Flying Cloud Steps and Cleaving Wind Blade.

Although improving his aptitude had greatly increased the efficiency of his own cultivation, it was still far too slow, nowhere near comparable to epiphanies.

Clearly, aptitude also enhanced epiphanies to a certain degree. The higher one's aptitude, the better the effect of an epiphany would become.

Thinking of this, Chen Mo practiced the Flying Cloud Steps and Cleaving Wind Blade several times before stopping. He felt that what he had been doing was a mistake, because it was unnecessary. Taking out all the money on him, he counted it...

"Thirty-eight taels left. If I resell the medicinal herbs and ointments sent by the Green Gang to an apothecary later, I should make another sum. But it will only be a few dozen taels. That is not enough to buy any particularly good techniques. Trash Tier techniques are actually of no help to me."

Originally, he had wondered whether he could buy as many techniques as possible, cultivate them to the entry level, and then use epiphanies to raise all of them to Perfect Accomplishment. The efficiency would surely be extremely high.

But after the Iron Body Technique reached Perfect Accomplishment, aside from strengthening his defense, it had only increased his physical strength by a minuscule amount. That showed that Trash Tier techniques no longer provided much of a boost to him.

Was there still any need to cultivate so many Trash Tier techniques?

Chen Mo currently had fist techniques, blade techniques, movement techniques, and cultivation techniques all covered. He felt there was no need to learn any more techniques.

He still understood the principle that greedily chewing too much would leave one unable to swallow.

First cultivating these techniques properly, then saving Enlightenment Points to advance them—that was the true path before him.

No matter how many Trash Tier techniques he had, they could not compare to a single first-rate technique.

"I'll go to the apothecary first."

Carrying all the medicinal herbs and ointments with him, Chen Mo went to the nearest apothecary and successfully sold everything at twenty percent below market price, earning another forty-three taels.

Techniques that had entered the ranks were rarely sold directly. Even when they were, they cost over a hundred taels.

Some fairly good or distinctive ranked techniques could only be found at Auction Houses.

Chen Mo currently had less than a hundred taels in total. Even if he went, he could not buy anything. He might not even be allowed through the Auction House doors, since such events for wealthy people required proof of assets.

"Do I really have to go grave robbing?" Chen Mo thought with amusement.

The graves of ordinary families had no value to steal, while with wealthy households, he would not even be able to find where their burial chambers were.

For now, he would not consider that way of making money.

As he pondered these matters, Chen Mo realized that he had somehow arrived near the Hundred Flowers Pavilion again. Heaven could bear witness that he truly had not come here on purpose.

After hesitating for 0.2 seconds, he thought, Since I'm already here, and walked straight inside.

Let the music continue, let the dancing continue. It was not as though he had no money now, so why think so much?

If he truly ran out of money, at worst he could go "visit" those small gangs in the Slum District. Presumably, they would not be so stingy.

Although the Hundred Flowers Pavilion had few tricks to offer, and the girls did not stir much desire in him either, Chen Mo simply could not find any other entertainment. He could only make do.

Going in during the morning and coming out at dusk, Chen Mo spent another fulfilling day.

For the following four days, he lived exactly like this.

When he thought of how cultivating night and day would take several months to bring a Trash Tier technique to Perfect Accomplishment, while an epiphany only needed two uses—just two days—to accomplish the same thing, Chen Mo no longer had the Heart Qi to practice.

Better to listen to music at the brothel.

It was not that he was not working hard. The returns on effort were simply too low.

With four epiphanies, Chen Mo successfully "cultivated" the Flying Cloud Steps and Cleaving Wind Blade to the Perfection Realm.

The former made his footwork lighter and swifter, no longer so disorderly and chaotic. The improvement was obvious, though not exaggerated. Trash Tier techniques truly could not be expected to accomplish too much.

Combined with the strength of the Divine Strength Realm, the latter made every slash seem capable of splitting the air apart. The blade moved with Tiger Roars with Wind, its speed so fast that it became an afterimage. Chen Mo could now live up to the title of Swift Blade Master.

After bringing both techniques to Perfect Accomplishment, Chen Mo did not have epiphanies regarding Skills like Excavation or Tracking. Instead, he saved all his Enlightenment Count, preparing to advance his techniques.

Now a question lay before him: should he save for longer and advance the Turtle Breath Health Cultivation Technique, or save less and advance the Iron Body Technique, Flying Cloud Steps, and Cleaving Wind Blade?